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Last Year’s Winner: “The Zen Diaries of Garry Shandling”

Still Eligible: No.

Hot Streak: Prior to the Netflix disruption, this category was a three-horse race from 2003 – 2016. During those 13 years, only HBO, History, and PBS earned victories in the category, and aside from one win each from Discovery and CBS, these were the only networks to win in the history of Best Documentary or Nonfiction Special category.

Fun Fact: One of the Big Four broadcast networks hasn’t been nominated in this category since 2011 — just two years before the TV Academy renamed Outstanding Nonfiction Series as Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special. Prior to the shift toward including feature-length documentaries, ABC, CBS, NBC, and/or Fox had been in the running nine of the 11 years prior.

Notable Ineligible Series: Docuseries have their own category, so don’t expect the likes of “America to Me” or “Our Planet” here.

At the bottom...

Richard Pryor‘s widow, Jennifer Pryor, isn’t holding back recalling her memories of the late, great comedian in the new documentary, I Am Richard Pryor. Jennifer sat down with uInterview exclusively at SXSW in Austin, Texas, to share the warts-and-all story of Pryor’s crazy life and art. Richard grew up in a brothel and “his grandmother was a […]...

Richard Pryor remains known for channeling his misfortune into groundbreaking comedy. But he was lucky to be alive after setting himself on fire in June 1980.

In Paramount Network’s new documentary I Am Richard Pryor, his widow Jennifer Lee Pryor classifies the life-threating incident a suicide attempt.

“He warned me,” she claims to People. “He said to me, ‘I’ve decided what to do. I have to do this otherwise I don’t know how I’m going to get out. There’s no way out of this so you need to leave so you don’t get hurt too.

Set to air March 15 on the Paramount Network after its SXSW world premiere, “I Am Richard Pryor” is a largely satisfying if thoroughly conventional portrait of the immensely gifted and deeply troubled entertainer whose richly deserved reputation as a comic genius stems at least partially from his frequent and fearless willingness to make himself the target of his take-no-prisoners humor.

Director Jesse James Miller has entwined film clips, archival material and talking-heads interviews to fashion what occasionally feels like an officially sanctioned biography — an impression only reinforced by the billing of Jennifer Lee Pryor, the subject’s widow and a recurrent interviewee in the film, as an executive producer. Still, the story that emerges is undeniably fascinating, and may prove especially intriguing for viewers who have only recently discovered the late legend through his scripted features and comedy-concert films.

Even longtime fans of Pryor might be surprised by those sections...